A conventional parking assist system for assisting a driver's parking operation has been disclosed in a Japanese Patent Laid-open published as No. 1999-334470, in which an image of a view in a vehicle moving direction captured by a camera is shown on a monitor display installed in a vehicle. More particularly, the disclosed parking assist system assists the driver's parking operation by superposing an expected vehicle moving path in response to a steering angle of a steering handle on the back view captured by the camera. Therefore, the driver turns the steering handle so as to park the vehicle at a predetermined parking position with reference to the expected vehicle moving path along with a parking marker on a screen of the monitor display, the other parked vehicle of the screen thereof, or the like.
The above-disclosed parking assist system is effective for a driver, who is not accustomed to the parking operation, to easily park at an intended parking position. However, according to the parking assist system, the vehicle sometimes can not be parked at the intended parking position in a proper manner. For example, there was a case that the vehicle could not be parked in the parking marker and the vehicle was parked at an angle relative to the parking marker. In such a case, the vehicle may have been unnecessarily operated.
The present invention therefore seeks to provide an improved parking assist system capable of judging whether or not the vehicle can be parked at the intended parking position prior to initial parking operation by a driver.